Murder on Lenox Hill by Victoria Thompson
I’m always trying to find an Agatha Christie replacement but Victoria Thompson isn’t it. Although the story is set back-when, you wouldn’t know it except for an occasional reference to long skirts. It doesn’t capture the manners of the time at all. In fact, Murder on Lennox Hill (which isn’t even about a murder) deals forthwrightly with a subject that would be difficult even today. When a minister’s parishoners learn he’s been diddling the boys, they take matters into their own hands. Like immediately they believe this happened and tell each other. That it could even be discussed out loud, that they had words to say those things in mixed company, seemes unlikely. And that they would further spread this news, even more unlikely. Even today the victims of sexual abuse tend to shut up, not tell their whole church the sordid story.
And no one gets killed until the butt-end of the book so the title is a spoiler. I won’t read more of these.